Destiny
by AKA DD
Summary: A short angsty Max drabble about what it's like to regret outrunning destiny.


DISCLAIMER: Dark Angel isn't mine.

A/N: Wrote a drabble in first-person for the first time. Just to break the monotony of writing one story.

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Funny how I never believed in destiny—no matter how many times it hit me over the head. I mean, I've always known I was hard-headed, but I never thought it was such a bad thing. All along, I thought it was a strength in my character, not a flaw. But then again, sometimes, it's way too easy for the tables to turn and your strengths can just as soon be your weaknesses.

Apparently, I was too stubborn for my own good.

Because even if opportunity comes knockin' once, twice, and a couple of thousand times, it was still bound to skip town sooner or later. Especially when I was too stubborn pretending not to hear.

I never banked on me regretting the way things turned out either. Thought I'd never see the day I'd be sitting up on this lonely tower and feeling like four walls were closing in on me. Thought I'd never come to the point where I would wish that maybe I should have been more the listening type. I mean, who knew that I'd just be pretending that I'm glad he went away? Even I thought I'd be sighing with relief, thinking that I'd finally find some peace. Constant knocking at your door could cause quite a racket, y'know.

Especially when you were so busy not believing in destiny.

But what do you know? This time, I was the one who really screwed up. Because when I finally opened that damned door, Mr. Opportunity was nowhere to be found. It's ironic, really. I've cheated death a few times before, but I didn't think anyone could cheat destiny. Maybe I really am something special. Ms. No-Junk-DNA. I'm almost sure there are a couple strands of DNA in me encoded with the special ability for denial.

I mean, that's all it really takes to cheat destiny: deny, deny, deny. Come to think of it, they were only three letters apart. Funny. Wish I hadn't lost my ability to really laugh though. These days, I'm feelin' pretty much like I'm some kind of clown. A fake smile plastered over my face. Maybe a fake tear painted over one cheek, too. Just for kicks. Everyone would think it was all part of the joke.

That it was so fucking hilarious that I'd be feeling a little blue over the fact that he hopped on his motorcycle one day and rode off into the sunset.

If I didn't know better, I'd be laughing right now along with everyone else. Unfortunately, it's those tears that nobody sees that really gets you.

The kind that comes from somewhere so deep inside of you that they actually hurt to cry them out. The kind that keeps reminding you at night that this was what hell was. Gut-wrenching tears in the dark, in a room all alone so nobody would ever know that you were only half a person.

That was hell: knowing that you'd screwed things so bad that there was a chance that you would never be all right again. That the world would never be quite the same because it was missing the one person that knew just how to make things all right.

Maybe that you would never really ever be happy again.

My personal hell was watching the clock tick away at night, counting down the rest of my life without him in it. I'd scream his name out loud if I thought he'd hear me. But I'm afraid I might have taught him a thing or two about not listening.

I just wish I'd been encoded for something more useful, like turning back time. But if there was one equalizer in this world, it was time. Everyone only gets twenty-four hours in a day, sixty seconds in one minute. He was gone in the sixty seconds it took me to finally accept destiny. And like the great equalizer that it is, there is nobody in this world who knows just how to get those sixty seconds back.

"_I love you, Max. So what's it gonna be?"_

"I love you, too." I whisper into the darkness, as if he were still there standing in front of me, with his hands tucked deeply into his back pockets, his one boot scuffing the ground, his head tilted in an oddly vulnerable angle.

There it was again. Irony. His image vanishes and from my sight and all I see is the darkness that seems to stretch on forever.

I can say it so clearly now, but he's nowhere around. How the hell does it take anyone in their right mind sixty seconds to say the answer that they'd always known in their hearts?

By the time I'd turned around, I was left with swirling dust. And I just knew: he was never gonna come back. A guy, no matter how perfect, could only take so much. And I knew I was one tough pill to swallow.

All this feline DNA and I'm still the world's biggest bitch. It's almost like a special talent, another one for the specially encoded DNA.

The funny thing was, for the longest time, I never wanted to change. I'd always thought it was a good thing I was such a bitch because then…the whole world couldn't screw me over. Never hit me that _I_ might screw me over. Figures. I've been running away for so long, I even ran away from the one person that felt like home.

I didn't even pause long enough to give him a chance. To give _me_ a chance.

I just wish I'd said something sooner. Maybe he'd be here right now. Because, as luck would have it…I may have been too late in figuring things out, but a million years from now, I'd still be feeling the same way. Loving him still.

Because it was destiny.

I didn't even get to choose. But I ran away from it. And now, I can't find my way back. It's like I'm a broken toy that only knows how to do one thing.

I drop my head onto my knees and I let the tears fall. It's like this every night. Until there's nothing left but the jigsaw pieces of my heart. I watched as a tear splattered over the rusted rooftop of the Space Needle.

I watched as it splintered into several smaller drops that slowly slid down the inclined slope. It would roll down the Needle, but would be gone long before it hit the ground below—just like all the others that came before it, and all the ones after.

It was like, they were never even shed. Like my heart had never been broken, and like I was still me.

It was like I could still be me.

I raise my head and look over the horizon. Funny how you could believe in two things so strongly all at once. A part of me just knew that he was never gonna come back. But another part of me stubbornly stayed in Seattle so he could always come back. But now, I gotta make a choice.

I stood up and stretched, feeling the kinks of despair ease off of me like loose dirt. Tomorrow morning, I'mma hit the dusty road. I'm gonna find him and…well, stop running away. It was high time this broken toy learned a new trick anyway.

Like finding my way back home.

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Drabble inspired by the Tony Rich Project.


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